Lesson 1: Understanding the Context of Modernist Poetry

The English novelist Virginia Woolf declared that human nature underwent a fundamental change "on or about December 1910." The statement testifies to the modern writer's fervent desire to break with the past, rejecting literary traditions that seemed outmoded and diction that seemed too genteel to suit an era of technological breakthroughs and global violence.”

Understanding the context of literary modernism (specifically, modernist poetry) is important for students before they analyze modernist texts themselves. To that end, this lesson enables students to explore and consider the forces that prompted such a “fundamental change” in human nature. In this lesson, students will explore the rise of cities; profound technological changes in transportation, architecture, and engineering; a rising population that engendered crowds and chaos in public spaces; factory life; and the aftermath of WWI. Students will begin to understand how these influential factors contributed to making individuals feel less unique and more alienated, fragmented, and at a loss in their daily lives and larger worlds.

Guiding Questions

What are several historical, social, and cultural forces that prompted the modernist movement?

What were the effects of these influential factors?

Learning Objectives

Students will understand the historical, social, and cultural context of modernism at large.

The term modernism refers to the radical shift in aesthetic and cultural sensibilities evident in the art and literature of the post-World War I period. The ordered, stable and inherently meaningful world view of the nineteenth century could not, wrote T.S. Eliot, accord with ‘the immense panorama of futility and anarchy which is contemporary history.’.. rejecting nineteenth-century optimism, [modernists] presented a profoundly pessimistic picture of a culture in disarray.”

Pass out the following blank Aspects of Modernism chart (available as a PDF). Based on the quotation above, help students brainstorm some of the differences between Romantic and modern periods, which may include the following:

Have students keep this chart, which they will add to as they continue with Lesson Three of this curriculum unit.

Note that the English novelist Virginia Woolf proclaimed that, “human nature underwent a fundamental change ‘on or about December 1910.’" [From the Academy of American Poets “The Modernist Revolution: Make It New”]. Her claim was in reaction to the transformative post-Impressionist exhibit curated by critic Robert Fry, which featured artists such as Gaugin, Cézanne, and Van Gogh. Ask students to consider what this statement means—to undergo a fundamental change in human nature. Discuss with students their own experience of such a shift in human nature. While many students will likely mention September 11th, encourage students to think of other profound changes: computers, the Internet, and World Wide Web; space travel, including the space station and the Mars rovers; 24 hour news networks; the prevalence of cameras and digital photography; and so forth. Ask students to think broadly and write down specific emotional and social changes they have experienced in their daily lives because of these changes.

Activity 2. Exploring the Context of Modernist Poetry

Now that students have briefly considered how events and inventions can radically affect our worldview, redirect them to the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The following exercise may work equally well working as individuals, in groups, or as a class. If working as a class on a single computer or if you wish to provide students with a brief introduction before group work, lead students through a tour of the interactive timeline from the EDSITEment-reviewed resource Learner.org: Timeline: Events of 1876-1999. Focus on the late 1800s and 1900s. The class may also review the Twentieth-century Timeline, a link accessed via the EDSITEment-reviewed Internet Public Library. While not all on the same scale of September 11th, certain historical, social, and cultural forces prompted the same kind of wide-scale change in the way individuals thought about their world. Ask students what some of these influential forces were. Students should see events such as: the rise of cities; profound technological changes in transportation, architecture, and engineering; a rising population that engendered crowds and chaos in public spaces; a growing sense of mass markets often made individuals; and WWI contributed to making people feel less individual and more alienated, fragmented, and at a loss in their daily lives and worlds.

Divide students into five small groups. Assign each small group to one of the five topics listed below. Ask students to explore the assigned resources and to try to imagine life before and after the key moments in history. These sites primarily focus on U.S. history.

Have each group assign a scribe, and ask each group to list at least five adjectives to describe how life must have been within the context of the topic they explore as a small group. Emphasize that students should consider these topics within the context of how an individual would respond to these social, cultural, technological, and historical changes.

Ask students in this group should consider the following questions as they note key inventions/technological advancements at the turn of the 19th century:

What were some of the primary effects/ramifications of each invention/technological breakthrough?

How do you think individuals responded to the inventions/technological advancements? What became easier? What became harder in one’s daily life?

What are some of the effects of the invention of motion pictures (both in terms of the technology itself and the ability to capture moving images of various content/subject matters)?

Rise of the City

Prompt students to compare and contrast rural and urban life. Discuss with them the rise of the city that occurred with the influx of immigration, continued industrialization of the United States (especially the North), and the rise of now commonplace features like major department stores and their window displays.

Have this group watch the following early videos of New York, available via the EDSITEment-reviewed American Memory website, asking them to pay attention to people, traffic, and crowds.

How would you feel if you were an individual navigating these city scenes?

What elements of each city scene video stand out to you and why?

Imagine first riding on an elevated railroad through a city or in a city subway? What would this ride feel like if you never had experienced it before?

How might these changes effect how people responded to the city? To each other? Teachers might prompt students to consider, for example, how the layout of the school building or the way they move between classes—or from class to home—influences their relationships with other people.

What do you imagine the experience of emerging from a WWI trench was like for a soldier? To what can you compare such an experience?

What do you think of the war-devastated landscape? How would you feel if you lived in such a European city after WWI?

What emotional effects do the before and after pictures elicit? Compare these pictures to contemporary images (of September 11th, the War in Afghanistan, the War in Iraq).

Assessment

Assessment options include the following exercises:

Have each student group present their findings, including their list of adjectives, from the small group activity to the full class. Write all adjectives on the blackboard/whiteboard. Lead brief full class discussions on each topic, and begin to chart primary characteristics of a modernist sense of the world.

Have each individual student write a typed, two-page letter in the voice of an individual living during the late 1800s to early 1900s. The letter can be written to imaginary individuals from future generations. The letter should address the individual’s response to the social, cultural, technological, or historical change explored during the small group activity. Be sure to integrate into your letter the adjectives your group identified during the small group activity, and explain why those terms apply to you as an individual (in the persona you have chosen to adopt).